La Salle passes $24.7M budget

Presented with a budget for 2024 that includes a general fund total of nearly $24.7 million, La Salle County commissioners voted on Monday, December 11, to put the measure into effect without granting a six-percent salary hike to sheriff’s office deputies and staff.

The budget includes a three-percent salary increase for all county employees, as had been planned in a standard cost-of-living raise. Correctional officers and staff at the county’s regional detention center in Encinal, however, are not included in the pay hike, as they each received an additional $5 per hour raise that was approved last year.

Sheriff Anthony Zertuche had appealed to the court last week to grant his officers and staff a six-percent raise above the three percent that had already been agreed upon in an early budget draft, claiming he risks losing employees to neighboring law enforcement agencies who offer higher salaries.

The estimated cost of granting an additional six percent to the entire sheriff’s office, according to the county’s financial consultant, Jorge Flores, would have been over $209,000.

Flores also estimated that giving all of the county employees beyond the sheriff’s office a six-percent salary hike in a two-step implementation would have cost nearly $459,000, including an estimated 18 percent in fringe benefits.

The financier addressed commissioners Monday with a budget outline that features more than a million dollars to three of four commissioners’ road and bridge funds, with $1.9 million to Precinct 1, $1.3 million each to Precincts 2 and 3; and an even $2 million to Pct. 4. The distribution is based on the number of road miles within each of the commissioners’ precincts.

The county’s debt service in 2024 will top $6.7 million, Flores said.

The budget draft offered on Monday had not changed in any significant measure from the document offered a week previously, Flores said, although the sheriff’s office and countywide six-percent payroll hikes could be stitched into the year’s finances pending the court vote.

Changes to the budget for next year include some individual fund adjustments, such as combining the accounts for the Encinal Community Center and the Elderly Nutrition Center in that town for the sake of reporting foodservice expenses to the state government; a $10,000 operating expenses fund for the county judge’s office but removal of his $11,000 travel allowance; a $50,000 donation to the Wintergarden Women’s Shelter; and a $110,000 project to pave an area behind the First Church of Cotulla for courthouse parking.

Judge Leodoro Martinez III made the motion that the court accept Flores’ budget proposal and put it into effect on January 1. He was seconded by Commissioner Jack Alba, supported by Comms. Raul Ayala, Erasmo Ramirez and Noel Niavez.

Commissioners did not offer further discussion on the salary hike that Sheriff Zertuche had asked for last week.

The sheriff said after the meeting that he is concerned over what he described as a disproportionately low rate of pay to vital law enforcement officers in La Salle County.

“I’m disappointed with the court’s decision,” the sheriff said on Monday. “My staff are dedicated to their jobs, and my officers are here because they want to work in La Salle County and serve the people of our communities. I believe that they deserve to be paid equal to what their counterparts in our neighboring counties are being paid.

“My concern, going forward from this, is going to be holding on to the staff that I have,” the sheriff said. “We run the risk of losing officers to other counties and towns in South Texas. Yes, they are faithful to La Salle County, but you know that family and home expenses usually dictate a breadwinner’s decision where to seek the best income to provide for the loved ones and make ends meet.”

Elected officials would have been exempt from the six-percent salary hike if commissioners had approved it.